n. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter
put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of
a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a
train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial
retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage,
from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law
who might embitter his old age as he had done that of his own
father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon,
and the projected kingdom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.

Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for aggrandizement
and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of
some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and
its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same
time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his
brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recovered possession of England.
But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied
him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its
succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the
dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the
pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping.
This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from
destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous
force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace
with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till
after the treaty was signed, upbraided and abused the English
king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.

Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions,
now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggrandizement, and to
recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately
belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would
be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The
infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying,
abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the
constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his
independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and
who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to
either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine.
Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies
to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive